The Try-Something-New Challenge . . . want to join in?

Is there something that you have been wanting to learn? To do? To try just once to see what it would feel like?

Is the Fear of Failure holding you back? Is a lack of resources holding you back? Is there someone in your life who is telling you that you don’t focus and you never finish anything? Is there a voice in your head that always gives you bad advice? Don’t start. You have so much to do around the house. You have to get up early in the morning. You haven’t done laundry for a week. The garage is a disaster.

Do you feel like you simply do not have enough time, precious time, to even think about starting something new?

The bad news: You don’t have enough time. The good news: You do have enough time. You CHOOSE which news you want your inner soul to hear.

I kept delivering the bad news to my heart, my mind, my hands, my spirit. Financial struggles, too many jobs, juggling household chores, burned out from work, distracted by pets. All of this mindspeak was proving to be so exhausting to my Inner Spirit that I simply stopped trying to express any creativity.

Until lately. I have undertaken a personal challenge: Try something newevery single day.

In the beginning, this challenge verified the bad news –> it was something that felt overwhelmingly huge and impossible. When am I going to have the time to try something new every single day?! My days already feel like pasta in a pot of water — on constant boil and threatening to spill over onto the clean stove top at any given second.

But. I read once that if you lay a wooden spoon across a pot of boiling pasta that it won’t overboil. No more messy stove to clean up. So, I tried this trick and it works! Pretty amazing and soooo simple, right?

This Try Something New Challenge to myself has proven to be that magical wooden spoon. I not only have enough time to Try Something New, I have plenty of time. I don’t understand the way that time has expanded, but it has. The hard part was starting. The easy part is enjoying the rewards. It has been so. much. fun.

I originally intended on focusing on one single something new to try for the 30 days. Develop some consistency and build some sense of habit by adding only one thing. All sorts of ideas came to mind. Play piano every single day. Ride my scooter to work every single day. Eat a healthy breakfast every single day. Work out every single day. Do one or all of these things every single day for 30 days.

But I found that this wasn’t working. I couldn’t decide on one-single-something-new. As I was casting about for that perfect one-single-something-new, I discovered that was working was trying something uniquely different every single day. Examples? I started piano lessons — and have been pretty disciplined regarding playing everyday. I went dancing at a casino — great stories as a result of this adventure. I broke out the new orange-and-white kitchen towels that had been preserved in their pristine state in my kitchen drawer — now brightening my kitchen and thoroughly broken in with the hues of red wine, carrot juice, and tomato sauce. I introduced myself to a stranger — and we have since become acquaintances.

You get the idea. I called an ex-boyfriend just to say hi. I bought Swiss chard at the vegetable stand. I wrote a long overdue letter. I told someone about my current writing project. I had dinner at a restaurant that I have been wanting to go to. I took photographs of garbage. I painted a Jackson-Pollack-inspired painting and then added all sorts of 3-D items. I started reading my horoscope. I started blogging.

So. Many. Fun. Things. Now? I make sure that I squeeze that Something New into my waking hours. I have effected change. The ripples have been spreading. There have been some really fun and surprising and happy results by expressing some willingness to shake things up.

Would you like to share in this challenge with me? Is there something new that you have been really wanting to do?

Please, leave a reply and post your One New Thing and share how it is changing your world. We all would love to hear about it!